Portland-based GemKitty, a design-your-own gemstone jewelry website, was asked to join 23 other co-creation companies in a coordinated Facebook campaign to create awareness about the mass customization industry. This movement, dubbed “Mass Customization Friday”, took place on August 6th with all 24 design-your-own companies advertising on Facebook in an organized fashion. Arwa Jumkawala, GemKitty’s owner who also moonlights as a TMMPDX Roving Reporter, gave TMMPDX the scoop on the outcome of this collaborative Facebook campaign.

TMMPDX: To my knowledge, this collaborative Facebook ad campaign was the first of its kind. How did GemKitty initially hear about the “Mass Customization Friday” Facebook campaign?

GemKitty: Carmen from custom chocolate (yum!) company Chocri invited us to participate. She’s been an evangelist for the mass customization trend for a while and we connected around that. She was the mastermind behind the campaign and coordinated the efforts of the 24 companies that participated.

TMMPDX: What was the purpose of this one-day online movement?

GemKitty: It was to gain buzz and awareness for customization/co-creation/design-your-own companies and products. While we’ve seen increasing awareness for companies like Café Press and Zazzle that give you the ability to customize photo products like a t-shirt or mug, there’s a lot less awareness about a new breed of custom companies. Do a lot of people know that they can customize such things as men’s dress shirts, handbags, or pet food? Probably not. That‘s why we did this, to get some conversations going!

Facebook Ads From Participating Co-Creation Companies

TMMPDX: As online marketers, what we really want to know about are the results! How many impressions and clicks did GemKitty’s ad receive and what was the total number of impressions and clicks generated by this movement?

GemKitty: Being a newbie facebook advertiser, we didn’t optimize as well as we should have (lesson learned for next time), so we only received about 22,000 impressions and far fewer click-throughs. Looking back, we set a CPC (cost per click) that was too low. D’oh! Our colleagues did better, collectively garnering 14 million impressions with about only $1,800 spent!

TMMPDX: Do you think the companies involved in this campaign accomplished their goal?

GemKitty: Participants seem pretty positive about the experience. The goal was awareness, less so than sales, which is obviously more difficult to measure. But by combining efforts, it was a really budget friendly experiment and also generated some additional PR coverage from high profile news sources such as The Huffington Post and the Entrepreneur Magazine blog, which is always a plus.

TMMPDX: Would you participate in another “movement” campaign?

GemKitty: Yes! Companies have already expressed an interest in doing it again in the future in unison with a Twitter campaign and unique hashtag.

TMMPDX: In the future, do you think we will see more companies joining forces to start online movements and raise industry awareness? Do you think this type of movement can work for any industry?

GemKitty: For new or emerging industries I think this kind of thing makes a lot of sense. The coordination helps cut through the noise and can give the economics a lift for the participants. While the form has changed, moving to social media and online platforms, I think there’s a lot of similarities here with the goals of the trade/industry associations that you see with more established markets. What’s most interesting to us is the willingness of companies working with their could-be competitors for a common goal.

TMMPDX: To learn more about the motivation behind the “Mass Customization Friday” Facebook campaign and the 24 companies who participated in this movement, check out the articles on The Huffington Post and the Entrepreneur Magazine blog.

GemKitty is an online jewelry e-boutique where you can co-create your own gemstone earrings or necklaces. Your design is handcrafted to order in their Portland studio and shipped to you. With hundreds of gemstones available, GemKitty offers over a million unique jewelry possibilities.

Subscribe

Comments (2)

The Deadening Lava Ground includes at least 32 cinder cones such as Pair Drum,[33] and its centre lies in Southeastern City. The quiescent but potentially gymnastic scissure Organize Crook to the eastern of Metropolis is easily viewable from much of the city during illuminate windward.

Users often see things differently than programmers. People who use modern general purpose computers usually see three layers of software performing a variety of tasks, platform, application, and user software.

Portland-based GemKitty, a design-your-own gemstone jewelry website, was asked to join 23 other co-creation companies in a coordinated Facebook campaign to create awareness about the mass customization industry. This movement, dubbed “Mass Customization Friday”, took place on August 6th with all 24 design-your-own companies advertising on Facebook in an organized fashion. Arwa Jumkawala, GemKitty’s owner who also moonlights as a TMMPDX Roving Reporter, gave TMMPDX the scoop on the outcome of this collaborative Facebook campaign.

TMMPDX: To my knowledge, this collaborative Facebook ad campaign was the first of its kind. How did GemKitty initially hear about the “Mass Customization Friday” Facebook campaign?

GemKitty: Carmen from custom chocolate (yum!) company Chocri invited us to participate. She’s been an evangelist for the mass customization trend for a while and we connected around that. She was the mastermind behind the campaign and coordinated the efforts of the 24 companies that participated.

TMMPDX: What was the purpose of this one-day online movement?

GemKitty: It was to gain buzz and awareness for customization/co-creation/design-your-own companies and products. While we’ve seen increasing awareness for companies like Café Press and Zazzle that give you the ability to customize photo products like a t-shirt or mug, there’s a lot less awareness about a new breed of custom companies. Do a lot of people know that they can customize such things as men’s dress shirts, handbags, or pet food? Probably not. That‘s why we did this, to get some conversations going!

Facebook Ads From Participating Co-Creation Companies

TMMPDX: As online marketers, what we really want to know about are the results! How many impressions and clicks did GemKitty’s ad receive and what was the total number of impressions and clicks generated by this movement?

GemKitty: Being a newbie facebook advertiser, we didn’t optimize as well as we should have (lesson learned for next time), so we only received about 22,000 impressions and far fewer click-throughs. Looking back, we set a CPC (cost per click) that was too low. D’oh! Our colleagues did better, collectively garnering 14 million impressions with about only $1,800 spent!

TMMPDX: Do you think the companies involved in this campaign accomplished their goal?

GemKitty: Participants seem pretty positive about the experience. The goal was awareness, less so than sales, which is obviously more difficult to measure. But by combining efforts, it was a really budget friendly experiment and also generated some additional PR coverage from high profile news sources such as The Huffington Post and the Entrepreneur Magazine blog, which is always a plus.

TMMPDX: Would you participate in another “movement” campaign?

GemKitty: Yes! Companies have already expressed an interest in doing it again in the future in unison with a Twitter campaign and unique hashtag.

TMMPDX: In the future, do you think we will see more companies joining forces to start online movements and raise industry awareness? Do you think this type of movement can work for any industry?

GemKitty: For new or emerging industries I think this kind of thing makes a lot of sense. The coordination helps cut through the noise and can give the economics a lift for the participants. While the form has changed, moving to social media and online platforms, I think there’s a lot of similarities here with the goals of the trade/industry associations that you see with more established markets. What’s most interesting to us is the willingness of companies working with their could-be competitors for a common goal.

TMMPDX: To learn more about the motivation behind the “Mass Customization Friday” Facebook campaign and the 24 companies who participated in this movement, check out the articles on The Huffington Post and the Entrepreneur Magazine blog.

GemKitty is an online jewelry e-boutique where you can co-create your own gemstone earrings or necklaces. Your design is handcrafted to order in their Portland studio and shipped to you. With hundreds of gemstones available, GemKitty offers over a million unique jewelry possibilities.